Kings County Biographies
This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
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SACRED HEART HOSPITAL.
No department of human beneficence is of more importance or value to the
human race than that which alleviates the illnesses and pains of the body and in
this great field of labor no agency has been so potent and efficient as have the
hospitals, where under the best of environment and under the most skilled
treatment disease can be more successfully combated than elsewhere. One of the
most appreciated institutions in Kings county is the Sacred Heart Hospital,
located at Hanford, which has had a most commendable record since its
establishment here. The hospital was located here in 1914 and the present modern
building was erected in January, 1915, under the wise direction of the Sister
Superior, Mother Augustine, who has since died. The hospital is in charge of the
Order of Dominican Sisters, the mother home of which is in Salamanca, Spain.
After the Portuguese revolution of 1910 the order began the establishment of
hospitals in foreign lands, the first one in America having been established at
Ontario, Canada, the second one at Kenosha, Wisconsin, and the third one being
the Sacred Heart Hospital at Hanford. The hospital is thoroughly modern in every
respect, being equipped with the best appliances science can suggest, including
a complete X-ray laboratory, a complete dietetic department and a telephone
system connecting with each room and using the silent call system, by which a
light flashing on the office switchboard gives automatically the number of the
room Calling. The sister nurses are thoroughly trained, having taken rigid
examinations in all departments of their work, and are twelve in number, ten
graduate nurses and two lay nurses. It has been said by those competent to judge
that the Sacred Heart Hospital is the most complete in all its appointments of
any hospital of its size in the state.
Sister M. Catharine, the sister superior now in charge, received her
professional training in Ireland, Portugal and Spain. In 1911 she came to
America, first being assigned to the hospital at Ontario, but in 1914 she came
to Hanford, where she was placed in charge of the surgery. She succeeded Sister
Augustine as sister superior.
Source: History of Tulare County and Kings County, California � Kathleen
Edwards Small & J. Larry Smith, Vol. II, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke Publishing
Company, 1926.
p. 620
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler